Rethinking Expertise: Avalanche Control in Twentieth-Century Switzerland

This project studies the history of Swiss avalanche management since 1867 to better understand the creation of a system capable of dealing with natural disasters. This system hinged on the coordination of snow scientists, state officials, and mountaineers to develop, apply, and disseminate knowledge about snow and avalanches nationally and internationally. The project will study scientific developments and their entanglement with the political and social institutions of avalanche management, drawing upon methods from the history of science, environmental history, and Swiss history as well as science and technology studies and geography. Through a multi-sited historical study in scientific, mountaineering, and state archives in Switzerland as well as in France, Canada, and the United States (key partners in avalanche control), the project aims to further understanding about actors’ ideas, intentions, and interactions. The project will consider practices that create scientific and broader understandings of nature simultaneously.